Looking Toward The Future While Working in The Present

Abstract

It is my pleasure to attend this, the Fourth Huropean Conference of Medical and Health Libraries. I can clearly remember the excitement and anticipation as the first conference opened in Brussels in 1986, and the vigor of the second conference in Bologna two years later. The European Association for Health Information and Libraries started as an idea but came into being through the efforts of a small number of European health sciences librarians. EAHIL can be viewed as a significant step toward the global organization of health sciences librarianship. Other steps are also being taken. In 1992 the first Regional Congress on Health Information Sciences for Latin America and the Caribbean was held in Brazil, and the fourth Congress of the Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa was held just two months ago. The development of these regional and national health sciences library associations comes during times of great change. Have you thought about the changes that are occurring in your lives and your libraries and information centers? If your experiences are like the majority of health sciences librarians I encounter, you must learn many new skills in order to be successful professionally and provide up-to-date services in your libraries. Colleagues in other libraries in your country and in other countries are also confronted with major changes and the rapidity with which they are occurring. Professionally we face challenges and all around the world, events seem very unsettling. It is times such as these when some of the people looking at half a glass of water see it as half empty; others as half full. I hope that you arc all persons who see the glass as half full.